03-28-2021, 07:15 PM
Helgoland Station, Sigma-13
March 27, 828 A.S.
March 27, 828 A.S.
Olivia stared absently into the glass before her, transfixed by the bubbles rising through the liquid within, surfacing, and bursting in silent explosions. The man across from her kept talking excitedly, gesturing wildly about him, trying desperately to capture her attention. She doubted he would succeed.
“It’s the job of a lifetime,” the portly man cried. “A week’s trip through the Omicrons and you’re made!”
Olivia kept her eyes on her drink. The Omicrons. It would take a fortune to make her venture into that godless void of a stellar region again. A fortune, she assumed, the man didn’t have to offer.
“Not interested,” she replied coldly, hoping to finally get him to back off and leave her to drink in peace.
“You don’t understand!” He instead continued, unfazed by her answer. From within his oversized coat, he produced a small PDA and slid it across the table. It came to a rest against Olivia’s glass with a muffled clang. The mercenary’s eyes instinctively shifted to the lit screen, eyeing it for information.
Damn, she thought. Her eyebrows shot up as she read the number the datapad displayed. She could practically feel the man’s satisfied grin bore into her as she raised her head to finally look into his face. Smug little bastard.
“All that just to fly escort?”
The man nodded, his double-chin shaking asynchronously.
“Oh yeah,” he replied, his grin widening. “It’s the easiest money you’ll ever make!”
Olivia glanced back down at the PDA and scrolled through the screen’s content.
“I doubt it,” she muttered as she read the job’s details.
A shipment of ‘confidential’ cargo to be carried aboard an independent transport from Aomori Station, Honshu, to a small, unregistered depot at the edge of Omicron Delta’s Tokelau Cloud. The captain’s name was familiar to her; a smuggler she had encountered a few times during her work in the Omegas. He was known to be cool-headed and competent, two traits Olivia would always appreciate. The crew, however, seemed to be made up of whatever fortune seekers the employer could cobble together aboard Kusarian stations. Inexperienced and unreliable. The other escort pilots’ names didn’t ring any bells either.
Olivia was skeptical. The Omicrons were dangerous - more so than any other part of space she had been to. The plotted route seemed needlessly risky to her, traversing systems known to be swarming with Outcasts, the Order, Core, and - worst of all - Nomads. The unspecified cargo added a number of red flags to the already impressive bundle.
She scrolled again, returning to the promised payout. It was a lot. Over half of what she currently had on her account. Enough to keep her comfortable for months to come. The temptation gnawed at her.